This is all personal opinion. Not necessarily fact.

In one word, the soul of America is Equality. In two words, Melting Pot.

At the time the U.S. Constitution was being written, Europe was all empires and kings. Lords and servants. In 1789, the French Revolution’s Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen echoed a concept seeded by America’s 1776 Constitution. "Men are born and remain free and equal in rights.” There's been slow progress and many setbacks ever since. Democracy has been spreading. Equality has been improving.

Immigrants, have tended to move into neighborhoods alongside others of their original nationality. The best historical example of a true melting pot was the early Appalachian coal mining town. Matewan, West Virginia. Lattimer, Pennsylvania. Blair, West Virginia. Miners lived in company houses in towns run by company officials. There was one company sponsored church all the miners would attend despite their many backgrounds across nationalities and denominations. Miners were guarded by professional armed agents. The mining operators fought to keep the workers from organizing in unions.

Workers were purposefully kept from segregating into race or nationality based factions as a way to keep them from gaining the strength to fight the mining operation system. Divide and conquer. In mining towns, the workers united as equals. A true melting pot with no distinctions. The men shared the struggle of the mine. Equality. A survival mechanism born from shared hardship.